Family Ties
by coleygirl
Summary: Originally about Sirius, but Regulus kind of stole the spotlight. A study of conformity vs. the right thing to do.


"DON'T YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The irony followed Sirius through the creaky doorframe, as he retreated from his mother and seized the silver knob of a snake's contorted snarl and slamming the wooden door. A picture on the neighboring wall crashed to the floor, leaving thousands of little glass fragments littered across the carpet.

Walburga let out a blood-curdling scream, clawing at her long ebony tangles in her destructive rage. She collapsed to the floor dramatically, writhing on the carpet as her yowls contended with the noise of every door down the hall to Sirius's room being wrenched open and thrown shut viciously.

Her husband stared at his hands that rested in his lap, tuning out his wife's incessant screeching with an absent grimace that always seemed present on his once handsome face. His skin gathered in tired wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, a sign of the continuous stress the Black lifestyle. After sighing heavily, he spared his maddened wife one sigh before shifting in his chair for a more comfortable position.

Recognizing his father's unwillingness to react, Regulus approached the distressed thing on the floor. Her pale eyes bulged ridiculously as she continued to spew foul language, spit flying onto her youngest son's face. Without further hesitation, he grasped a flailing arm firmly and, using properly applied leverage, parted his mother from the musty rug.

"There Mother. We'll get you a Firewhisky, Ogden's finest, and you'll be good as new."

She stared at him like a starved animal, surveying his face hungrily as she halted in her assisted stagger toward the kitchen stairs.

"Don't you ever," she warned hoarsely, her voice gone from overuse, "betray us. Don't you ever turn your back on your family!"

He swallowed hard, attempting to continue steering her toward the temporary cure and long term damnation collecting dust on the cabinet. However, the deranged woman would not be ignored.

"Promise me Reg," she coughed, breaking her code of formality with the unfamiliar use of his nickname, "Promise me!"

He did not meet her eyes when he mumbled, "I promise Mother."

Regulus hated when they did this.

When they argued and bickered and disagreed and shouted. When Sirius threatened to run away and when their Mother drank herself stupid and when their Father watched without giving a damn that his family was falling apart right in front of him.

Almost nightly he watched the hatred grow, thrive and prosper, spreading like a disease through their Noble and Most Ancient House of Bullshit.

Regulus popped the cork of the bottle and reluctantly poured the alcohol into the glass where it sloshed up the sides by his unsteady hand.

He felt blood red talons scraping at his wrist as he allowed the glass to be greedily stolen away.

Regulus grimaced as his mother slumped into a kitchen chair and downed it all in one gulp.

He left her there, the bottle on the table, for the night.

She could manage.

He stormed angrily past his father, casting him a hateful glare as emphasis on his exit. Following his brother's furious footsteps, he walked out into the foyer. He ascended the stairs, but instead of retiring to his room he decided to go into the drawing room for some time to think.

He trudged past the expected décor of silver and green that glittered at him as the dull motif of serpents slithered down the wall.

He wandered about the room, mulling over the dysfunction of his family when his eyes fell upon a large tapestry. One he knew very well.

His father had brought both his older brother and Regulus at the tender age of eight years, as was tradition in the Black family, into the drawing room to discuss the family tree. The tapestry was an impressive sight, its history of pureblood and pride spidered across its thick material in thin golden silk. Mr. Black would approach the tapestry with a sort of caution, trained to the tips of his fingers as he gently traced the first line from their earliest ancestor down to his own name.

As his fingers slid down the timeline, almost as gently as the embrace of a lover, he wove a tale of lies and betrayals and power and death that plagued the Black legacy, his words thick with a sick sort of compassion for his ancestors.

Unaware of doing so, Regulus crept forward in the exact same fashion as his father, eyes fixed on his own name embroidered on the tapestry. Subconsciously holding a quivering hand before him, Regulus raised his arm and touched the memorial to his earliest ancestor, his legs shaking in the effort to reach. Then, slowly, his fingers began their dance along their predetermined paths, occasionally dipping into a burned crater where the family name was shamed and the member disowned.

Then with increased speed he rushed to the names he recognized. Uncle Alphard, the old coot, who seemed oddly fond of Sirius. Cousin Araminta, still working at the ministry to undermine respect for the Muggles. Aunt Druella, the mad old bat, recorded next to his father. Mother 

paired with father, and to thin golden threads spelling out both Sirius's and Regulus's name in careful script.

After several minutes of staring at his laid out obligation, his mother's screams still fresh in his mind, Regulus became aware that the door had been opened. Turning around quickly, he met the stone accusation in his brother's eyes. Slowly he became aware that his fingers still lingered next to his name, now hungry for the touch.

"Congratulations," Sirius rasped, tears formed in his eyes but not yet shed, "welcome to the family."

"No!" Regulus pleaded, reaching his right hand as the other boy fled the scene, "it's not…" but his protests went unheard.

"…please," he whispered quietly, fully ashamed of his treacherous behavior.

But with embarrassment burning his stomach he stared wistfully at the still swinging door before turning back to examine the tapestry, tears stinging his eyes.


End file.
